The Investment Marketing and Innovation Awards are back to reward the hard working innovative people and companies in the investment world. The awards categories cover both marketing and proposition development, as well as direct and digital marketing. They are designed to recognise and reward creativity and innovation within the sector.

Investment Week is delighted to be hosting the 25th Fund Manager of the Year Awards on Thursday 25 June ONLINE. This year's ceremony is a key part of Investment Week's 25th anniversary celebrations in 2020 and we will be presenting awards for Outstanding Fund Manager over 25 Years and Outstanding Contribution over 25 Years on the night. A flagship event for the investment industry for a quarter of a century, the Fund Manager of the Year Awards honour fund managers and groups at the top of their game who have demonstrated consistently strong performance for investors and whom the judging panel believe have the potential to continue to outperform in the future.

The Sustainable Funds to Watch series from Investment Week allows sponsors to show-case up and coming or evolving funds and managers to some of the most influential fund selectors in the UK. Both Funds to Watch Winter and Funds to Watch Autumn are two day mixed asset class conferences taking place in London. The conferences consist of a mixture of streams including funds under £250m, boardroom sessions aimed at more established groups, and quick fire presentations offered to groups by editorial direction.
This event is invitation only.

In this exclusive magazine exploring the evolution of quality and income ETF strategies, King reveals that each ETF follows an investment strategy developed by the group's in-house research team that leverages fundamental active insights to inform the factor definitions and applies portfolio construction principles to mitigate the unintended biases.

David Cumming, Aviva Investors' chief investment officer for equities, last year witnessed turbulent times for UK equities but he remains positive about the market in which he has a personal as well as a professional stake.

The race for a vaccine: The investment trust managers combating coronavirus

Outlooks for the biotech sector

With vast swathes of the world in lockdown, the one question on everyone's minds is how long will it take to develop a vaccine against Covid-19?

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) spoke to investment company and VCT managers about the prospects for a vaccine and how their portfolio companies are contributing to the fight against coronavirus.

What are the prospects for a vaccine?

Paul Major, Manager of BB Healthcare trust: "We are optimistic that a vaccine will be in commercial production within 18 months. There are more than 40 companies and groups working on a variety of approaches and we are mindful of the swine flu pandemic of 2009, when a vaccine was delivered within around six months from the WHO declaring it an emergency situation."

James Douglas and Gareth Powell, co-managers of Polar Capital Global Healthcare trust: "As of 20 March, there were two vaccine candidates already in clinical trials and another 42 vaccine candidates in pre-clinical development. There are some hopes that we may see initial clinical data before year-end but it is likely that it will take a good 12 to 18 months for larger clinical studies to read out for any of these vaccine candidates.

"Even with some positive data, manufacturing hundreds of millions of doses of a new vaccine for everyone will be a significant challenge - it is likely that initial vaccine doses will be given to healthcare workers.

"That said, there are a number of collaborative efforts emerging to solve the manufacturing issue with governments playing a key role.

"For this reason, the commercial implications are difficult to assess and, in most cases, projects are being advanced as quickly as possible without much thought about the profit to be gained."

Are any of your portfolio companies working on treatments or tests?

John Glencross, CEO of Calculus Capital which manages the Calculus VCT, said: "Our portfolio company Mologic is developing a rapid test for coronavirus. They have been awarded £1m of UK Aid to develop this test.

"On the back of this, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Mologic's lab in Bedfordshire, where scientists are using expertise and experience from previous epidemics to create a quicker and cheaper way to diagnose coronavirus.

"This rapid test could mean results are provided in 20 minutes, and without the need of a medical professional or sending samples to labs for testing.

"This will mean patients can be treated quickly, reducing the risk of them passing the virus on to others and helping them to recover faster.

"Another portfolio company, Genedrive, has pivoted part of its core resources towards development of two SARS-COV-2 tests, which can determine whether someone is infected with coronavirus. They anticipate that a clinically validated test could be available in approximately eight weeks. Based on discussions with sizeable third-party suppliers the company expects it could have the ability to ramp up quickly to high production volumes of over 10,000 tests per hour.

"Finally, a third portfolio company, Yourgene Health, has unveiled a contract manufacturing agreement with Novacyt SA for a Covid-19 diagnostic test. Under the deal, Yourgene will use its manufacturing facility in Manchester, UK, to ramp up production of Novacyt's Covid-19 test, with the first batches to be shipped from the Manchester site in the next few weeks."

Trevor Polischuk, portfolio manager of Worldwide Healthcare trust: "Many companies are accelerating their efforts in the anti-viral space in hopes of creating a treatment to help already infected patients. In Japan, Takeda's recent acquisition of Shire and their plasma derived therapy business has led to an investigational new treatment to boost the immune function of infected Covid-19 patients. Chugai's anti-inflammatory drug, Actemra, may also be useful in treating infected patients who are suffering from severe lung dysfunction resulting from coronavirus."

Ailsa Craig, manager of International Biotechnology trust: "The only way to prevent Covid-19 is through a vaccine or self-isolation. There is no other way of protecting people from infection. In terms of treatments, yes there are many programmes ongoing.

"Gilead has the most advanced potential treatment in terms of timescale. They expect their trials to read out in April for a drug called remdesivir. This is an anti-viral drug which was in development for another virus, ebola.

"Gilead has initiated two phase 3 trials in China and several more in the US. We owned Gilead in the portfolio prior to the outbreak due to its compelling valuation and solid HIV business and we have added to the position in recent months."